Saturday, July 4, 2015

Honouring those gentle, benign stingrays

I read recently that the New
Zealand Geographic Board proposes to change the name of Frank Kitts Lagoon, on
the Wellington waterfront, to Whairepo Lagoon.

Fair enough. Sir Frank Kitts,
a long-serving Wellington mayor, is already commemorated in the name of a
nearby park. And while Whairepo may not be the easiest name for non-speakers of
Maori to get their tongues around, it has local relevance. Whairepo is the
Maori name for the eagle rays – commonly known as stingrays – that are
frequently seen basking and feeding in the lagoon.

So far, so good, then. But
hang on a minute.

In a submission requesting
the name change, the Port Nicholson Block Settlement Trust, which represents
the original Maori occupants of the land around Wellington Harbour, said Maori
believed the eagle rays acted as kaitiaki, or guardians, ensuring the safety of
waka (canoes) and people in and around the lagoon.

This belief was solemnly cited
in a Geographic Board press statement.At this point an otherwise unexceptionable proposal starts to look
decidedly flaky.

Was this a practical joke,
intended to take the mickey out of earnest Pakeha liberals, or are we really
expected to take such mumbo-jumbo seriously?

I doubt that even Maori
genuinely believe the eagle ray is some sort of mystical, benign presence,
kindly watching over recreational lagoon users.

It’s a fish, for heaven’s
sake. What’s more, the eagle ray is capable of inflicting a very painful wound
on any idiot gullible enough to believe that it feels benevolently inclined
toward human intruders.

In instances such as this,
the desire to show respect for other cultures collides head-on with common
sense and empirical knowledge about the real world.

It’s one thing to respect
Maori heritage and to acknowledge their legitimate interest in conferring names
on public places, but that doesn’t mean deferring to folklore that we know to
be absurd.

But here’s the problem. Many
liberal Pakeha New Zealanders, desperate to do the right thing, buy into this
nonsense. Ironically, even people who scoff at conventional religious belief,
deriding it as so much fearful superstition, happily abandon their scepticism
whenever the tangata whenua invoke primitive mythology. It’s tikanga, and
therefore sacred and not to be challenged.

In a rational world, the Port
Nicholson Settlement Block Trust would invite mockery by expecting us to
believe that fish possess some sort of spiritual power. But in our eagerness to
be fashionably bicultural, we defer to statements that we know to be
preposterous.

The trust could have made its
case quite persuasively without resorting to superstition, just as a former
mayor of Masterton, Frank Cody, recently argued for the summit on State Highway
2 between the Hutt Valley and the Wairarapa to be renamed.

It has customarily been known
as the Rimutaka Hill Road, but the word Rimutaka is meaningless. It’s a
corruption of the original name, which was Remutaka, meaning “to sit down” – so
named, according to Maori tradition, by the Maori chief Haunui when he rested
at the summit while looking down on the land beyond.

Those in favour of restoring
the original name have made their case rationally and convincingly. Changing
the name of Frank Kitts Lagoon to Whairepo should be similarly uncontroversial.
Why, then, do its backers resort to the equivalent of fairy tales?

I can only surmise that it’s
a means by which Maori interests seek to exert influence over public
decision-makers who see it as career-enhancing to display cultural empathy,
even if it means bowing to beliefs they know to be ridiculous.

At least this time there’s no
economic cost attached, unlike the preposterous incident in 2002 when
construction of a new highway in the Waikato was halted because of Maori
concerns that it would disturb a resident taniwha. Transit New Zealand meekly
caved in and agreed to re-route the new road.

On that occasion, Dr Ranginui
Walker, a former professor of Maori studies, defended the belief in taniwha as
a cultural thing – “just as the same as goblins are part of European culture”.

The difference, of course, is
that no one pretends goblins actually exist, and I very much doubt that any European
highway was ever re-routed to avoid upsetting them.

Granted, there may once have
been a practical basis for stories about taniwha. Walker cited a dangerous
place on the Waikato River where Maori children were warned against swimming
because a taniwha would get them.

In that case, telling scary
stories about a taniwha was a sensible way of keeping kids out of trouble. But
it’s a credibility-breaking leap from there to asserting that taniwha genuinely
exist and that we must humour them.

But sadly, we should expect
more of this sort of thing. It’s not so long since Radio New Zealand reported,
without a hint of scepticism, that volcanic activity on White Island and Mt
Tongaririo was a sign that Ruamoko, the god of earthquakes and volcanoes, was
unhappy about the government’s plan to sell off state assets.

6 comments:

Interesting how these things are gradually being foisted upon us - by degrees so that we hardly notice. Even more alarming of course are the councils that are getting unelected Maori onto council committees where they have full voting rights. No vote just done by the councils themselves. Wherever it has been voted on it is rejected by the voters usually by around 80% to 20% but the larger the council the harder it is to raise enough signatures in the time frame to enable a poll to be taken. Our regional council voted for separate Maori wards with one councillor saying that it shouldn't go to the people 'because we know which way the vote will go'. The petition had to be raised within three months and that was mostly over the holiday break.

It's a hallmark of the postmodern worldview that has enslaved our laws and law makers. We apparently cannot definitively say that these people are wrong to believe that stingrays are legitimately guardians of the harbour, therefore we must honour their belief, at the expense of anyone who dares to believe in "truth".

Of course the ridiculousness of it is shown up if someone dares to show any belief in anything non-Maori. Why do we entertain prayers before certain events only if they are in Maori, not English? Either we entertain prayers, in whatever the majority language / belief system is prevailing, or we do not tolerate anything at all.

I think that if the events are official - ie put on by taxpayer-funded organisations (including ratepayer-funded organisations) or are in any way funded by taxpayers or ratepayers - the prayers should be in English only. NZ is an English-speaking country, NOT a Maori-speaking one. It's as simple as that.

I feel sorry for you as it seems you are living in a benign 3D reality... even quantum physicists disagree with the materialistic world view.. in my 21 years of experience I've had an amazing relationship with sting rays having lived coastal all over NZ my whole life they have kept up visiting and swimming with Me. It seems when I need them most :) most recently I was on Waiheke a few weeks ago and one swam right up to me swam alongside side Me as I walked the length of the bay. It seems pakeha are like those Maori lost by urbanization (+ the bevy of other variables) they forget that they too descend from ancient peoples that too had a strong relationship with that around them such as the Celtics Vikings and Anglo Saxons.. I'm sure if you opened up you would make a connection with any animal and release your Beautiful connection with world around you...

About Me

I am a freelance journalist and columnist living in the Wairarapa region of New Zealand. In the presence of Greenies I like to boast that I walk to work each day - I've paced it out and it's about 15 metres. I write about all sorts of stuff: politics, the media, music, wine, films, cycling and anything else that piques my interest - even sport, though I admit I don't have the intuitive understanding of sport that most New Zealand males absorb as if by osmosis. I'm a former musician (bass and guitar) with a lifelong love of music that led me to write my book 'A Road Tour of American Song Titles: From Mendocino to Memphis', published by Bateman NZ in July 2016. I've been in journalism for more than 40 years and like many journalists I know a little bit about a lot of things and probably not enough about anything. I have never won any journalism awards.